American boy of Albanian descent offers home to Syrian refugee in letter to Obama

Alex is just six years old and according the Albanian media both of his parents are Albanian Americans. He lives in Scarsdale, New York. Last month, like people around the world, he was moved by the heartbreaking images of Omran Daqneesh, a five-year-old boy in Aleppo, Syria, sitting in an ambulance, in shock as he tried to wipe the blood from his hands.

So Alex sat down and wrote Obama a letter. This week at a United Nations summit on refugees, Obama shared Alex’s moving words with the world.

Alex told Obama that he wanted Omran to come live with him and his family. He wanted to share his bike, and teach him how to ride. He said his little sister would collect butterflies for him. “We can all play together,” he wrote. “We will give him a family and he will be our brother.”

“Those are the words of a six-year-old boy — a young child who has not learned to be cynical or suspicious or fearful of other people because of where they come from, how they look, or how they pray. We should all be more like Alex. Imagine what the world would look like if we were. Imagine the suffering we could ease and the lives we could save. Listen to Alex, read his letter, and I think you’ll understand why I shared it with the world.” – President Obama on Facebook.